Gear Review From The TITRR & Final Thoughts

With the outcome of my ride so heavily influenced by weather and my fitness level, it may not make a lot of sense to delve into the gear, on the surface of it. However; I wanted to look at what I used and give my opinion on how it worked, and what could I have done better or worse.

I'll also give a few final thoughts on the matter of the Tree In The Road Ride. Then I'll move along to other things.

Okay, so let's dig in. My first thoughts were about the bike. I used the Singular Gryphon Mk3. This was, by far, it's biggest ride I've done on it so far. "Big" as in the level of importance and the difficulty level of the ride, which was pretty "big",in my opinion. 

I chose the Gryphon because MG wanted to see it, on the one hand, but I had my reasons for why I thought this bike would be a great choice. First of all, I knew it would be a comfortable bike, and not just because of the poofy, 29 X 2.8" Teravail tires. I had put the rare Luxy Bar on it, which is the friendliest bar for my upper body there is, I put Redshift Sports Cruise Control grips on the bar, furthering its potential for comfort.

The cherry on top of all this was the Redshift Sports ShockStop stem. With the front end addressed, I went with some tried and mostly true seating components. First up, I used a titanium Salsa Cycles Regulator seat post. These are strong enough, but not so stiff, and this combination is perfect on gravel. Some carbon posts are nice, yes, but when you want something that likely will not break, titanium is a good choice. Suspension seat posts are okay, but almost every one I try has too much give, and honestly, it drives me nuts after a while, so they come off and the titanium post goes back on.

The saddle was the Brooks Cambium, and usually those are "okay" with me. I was going to tilt the nose down slightly before the ride, but you know you should never mess with your saddle right before a big ride, right? So I didn't. With these bits I was pretty convinced I'd be alright. 

And in practice I could not have been happier. Everything worked really well. In the future I would try that saddle tilt, and maybe a new, zero-offset titanium seat post. The reach on this bike is juussst a bit much yet. 

The gearing was spot-on. I never wanted a deeper gear, and the front derailleur worked great. I did drop the chain once, so I could maybe add a chain watcher or look at my derailleur stop and adjust this bit again.

Despite my running a 3 X 9 speed set up, which would be considered antique by today's standards, I can say I would not go back to a 1X on this bike, since this is what the Singular is designed to have. Call me crazy, but the wonky chain line in lower gears on 1X set ups is something I do not like the feel of while riding.

If I could, I think I'd get a shorter crank arm length than the 175mm arms on the Gryphon currently. My thinking is that 170mm cranks would work a bit better.

The wheels were fine, and the big tires were stable and grippy, but I cannot help but feel these were overkill and that the weight of this assembly was unnecessarily heavy for such a climb-heavy course. I probably will think long and hard about getting a separate, lighter wheel set with lighter, narrower tires mounted on it for a ride like we did Saturday. Or......just choose another bike I have. 

The Black Mountain Cycles MCD would have probably been my alternative here. I have an XTR 11-40T 11 speed cassette I could have used with it's Spinergy wheel set which would have made the climbs fine and the bike would have been lighter. The wheel set has 700 X 50 WTB Resolutes on it as well, so grip should have bee good also.

I also could have shoe-horned in one of my carbon wheel sets for an even lighter alternative. Then another way I could have gone was with my Fargo Gen I.

The trouble there would be that it is still almost as heavy as the Gryphon and I have 180mm cranks on it as an experiment! I do have a fairly light wheel set for it, but I just don't have time to swap everything around on that bike just for one ride.

Finally, I could have brought my lightest bike, the Noble GX5, but being a 1X, the gearing is limited unless I convert to a mullet set-up using a lot lower geared cassette. Again, a lot of faffing around for one ride. So, the Gryphon, while not being the lightest choice, had the gearing and the comfort bits covered. 

In terms of my kit I was completely satisfied. I wore an old Showers Pass wool "shirt"/jersey thing which they no longer offer, sadly. Mine is about due for the bin soon and I cannot find anything like it with real rear jersey pockets and a loose fitting cut to it. Underneath was a base layer from Endura. I wore some lightweight, Summer season GORE bibs, and those were perfect. The Mint socks and Shimano shoes were great, along with my bandana and new Trek Circuit helmet.

The Wahoo Elemnt ROAM was a curse and a blessing. Maybe it is me. Maybe not, because others were experiencing GPS issues also. But when Life throws a curve ball into your route out of the gate, (a freight train, in this instance), and the GPS goes berserk, and it gets worse from there? Yeah..... I'm still not impressed with turn-by-turn functionality.

However; I did like the Climb notification and how the climb was broken down on the screen for me. This is a help, and knowing what to expect helped me meter out effort in a way I was not able to do without a GPS unit with this feature. So, on a ride like this, where climbing was a seemingly constant thing, I appreciated the Wahoo.

If I could criticize the Climb feature at all it would be when I was on a climb it did not recognize for whatever reason. There were more than a few where I felt I could have used the feature and it was not automatically popping up on screen for me.

Another annoyance was the way the Wahoo was always on the turn-by-turn map screen and would not show me time of day, mileage total, or elevation. I probably could have switched over to a different page for this, but I was not willing to mess with the unit thinking I'd best leave well enough alone. I still like having the Wahoo over anything else I've yet tried, but this thing is far from perfect. 

Final Thoughts on the Tree In The Road Ride:

I had been looking forward to this ride for months and thanks to N.Y. Roll, it was something that came true for me. Without his assistance and care, I would not have ever had a chance at getting out of town for any kind of a ride. So, thanks to N.Y. Roll, this was a success.

My son's health issues and my wife having car trouble over 200 miles from home on Friday nearly derailed this ride for me. I am glad neither thing did, and both things seem to be either resolved, or on their way to being so. But that was close! 

We had a bad draw on weather. The only thing which could have been worse would have been severe storms and rain. But you cannot choose your weather, so it was what we had to work with.

Then also I could have been in better shape, but as it turned out, I think a few of the others, at least, were happy the route was cut short. So, while I have some disappointment in my self, and in not completing the planned route, I am somewhat consoled by  how others were seemingly satisfied.

I was so glad I finally had the chance to ride in this portion of Iowa. As Jason Boucher said several times during the ride, he was always looking at the terrain around Atlantic on his way to other destinations and longing to follow those white gravel ribbons over the rolling hills he was seeing from his vehicle. Now he has done this, and so have I.

I cannot recommend Atlantic, Iowa and the surrounding area to ride and visit strongly enough. As Steve Fuller told me, "Atlantic is just big enough to have decent services". But it still has the distinct small-town Iowa flavor. Plus those hills and the views are as good as anything I've experienced in Iowa or in many other Mid-Western states, for that matter.  

Image by N.Y. Roll

I regret the Frys had experienced the accident coming home. I wish this would not have happened.  I have always been worried about everyone else's travels and experiences connected to my rides, so this hurt me. But my main concern is for Robert and Cary's well being and restoration. Similarly I was bummed for Dan Buettner who missed out joining our group by a handful of minutes. 

I was filled to the brim with happiness and joy from being able to see my friends and to ride with them. So, thank you to all who made the trip out and back. You all made me very happy. 

Now it is time to move on.

I have a ride planed for the 4th of July, as I am wont to do every 4th. Besides this, I may get out on something big and adventurous later in the year, but more than likely I will be plying the gravel roads of Black Hawk, and maybe a couple of other counties, for the remainder of 2025.  There are still things to get done on the bike....